Is the Austrian School Getting Tired of Being Right, Yet Not Heard?

Government needs to stop wasting all the € toilet paper in Greece (Image by Neil T via Flickr).

Just watched the news here in Norway about how Greece is asking the European Union for another stimulus package to deal with the bust and economic crisis they suffered a while ago, but as usual they offered no questions or investigations and simply mindlessly reported whatever they’re fed.

So what are people missing here? What is the most fundamental and most important question that “TV2 Nyhetskanalen (The Norwegian TV2 News Channel)” completely failed to ask and examine when reporting this case?

There are probably many great questions they could ask, but I would expect this much: “Why did the first stimulus package fail, and why should it follow that another stimulus can do what the first one obviously couldn’t?”

You cannot print yourself to prosperity and economic growth – not real growth in a sound economy in any case. The greek government had taken grossly advantage of the situtation up until their crisis – with a big majority of the nation on the government’s payroll. They were wasting resources and spending themselves to poverty. Yes, that’s right – simply spending all you have would do that. This applies for both individuals and governments, you know. Their government spent loads of money and warped the economy into a disaster. Upon this crisis the European Union with their central bank shipped a bunch of euros down to the old birthplace of the western civilization. Things seemed to quiet down a little. People thought Greece would do what was necessary to restructure their economy and get back to economic austerity, but as many Austrians and economic know-hows explained early on: This had been a great opportunity to do what is right and get rid of some bad government and start becoming responsible again, but it was wasted and things were just business as usual when Germany and the European Union decided to shoot the greeks up on heroine again and delay their long needed rehab.

Now it seems like the greeks have run out of their shipment of heroine and goes begging to their dealer to cut them some slack and give them some more – promising that they’ll soon get things in order, start producing and give something back. Are we at all surprised? Are Austrian economists getting tired of being vindicated by the cold facts of contemporary history yet again, without anyone else noticing what is flashing red right in front of them?

Quite honestly, I think Greece will whine to the European Union about another stimulus package until the Union will listen and provide them with what they think is the correct way of dealing with problem – surely sending their Union currency into oblivion hand in hand with the US dollar. Greece will probably shut up for a while, but only until they’re back to where they left off. Then it’s back to climbing onto the backs of their productive german friends again.

When will the world finally learn? Germany needs to teach Europe some of that economic german discipline, or else they’ll get dragged into the mud along with all the ignorant drug addicts in Europe.